Pretenders Singer Chrissie Hynde Slammed for Suggesting Women Are to Blame for Rape: "You Are Enticing Someone"

Her comments were made to the Sunday Times

The Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde is getting slammed for remarks she made about rape in an interview with the Sunday Times.

The 63-year-old opened up to the publication about her own sexual assault when she was 21, but suggested that women are to blame for getting raped. "You know if you don't want to entice a rapist, don't wear high heels so you can't run from him," she told the Times. She also said she takes "full responsibility" for what happened to her four decades ago.

"If I'm walking around in my underwear and I'm drunk. Who else's fault can it be?" she asked. "Technically speaking, however you want to look at it, this was all my doing and I take full responsibility," she said, also adding that she was high on drugs at the time.

Hynde recalled how she was forced to perform sexual acts on members of an Ohio motorcycle gang who had promised to take her to a party but instead brought her to an abandoned house.

"If I'm walking around and I'm very modestly dressed and I'm keeping to myself and someone attacks me, then I'd say that's his fault. But if I'm being very lairy and putting it about and being provocative, then you are enticing someone who's already unhinged—don't do that," she explained. "Come on! That's just common sense."

"I don't think I am saying anything controversial, am I?" she reflected.

Not everyone agreed with Hynde. Charity group Victim Support slammed the performer for her comments, saying that victims should never "blame themselves" for an attack.

"Victims of sexual violence should never feel or be made to feel that they were responsible for the appalling crime they suffered—regardless of circumstances or factors which may have made them particularly vulnerable," said Lucy Hastings, director of Victim Support, per the BBC. "They should not blame themselves or be blamed for failing to prevent an attack—often they will have been targeted by predatory offenders who are responsible for their actions."

People on Twitter were just as appalled. "Thing about rapists is that they're rapist," wrote Jill Bretherton. "They don't care what victims wear. Their impulse is to rape. They're rapists."

Another tweeted, "Dear Chrissie Hynde. NOTHING ever justifies the rape or sexual assault of a woman. It's the abusers fault only. Love. A Man."